Martin Amis and Ian Buruma on Monsters Part 2

[Larkspladge]

Can anyone tell me more about the reference to Nabokov's artiste "mon quai"? I'm taking a stab at the spelling. Anywhere I can read about it, any specific Nabokov books, Wikipedia pages etc.? I am completely ignorant of it but want to know more. Correction on the spelling would be gratefully accepted also. Thanks.

[Jammy777]

@Larkspladge

Took me a while to find aswell but I think it's the artist manqué.

There is an article comparing it's use by Amis and Nabokov when you put the term into google, third link down when searching "artist manque". Hope that helps.

[jsuglia]

artist manqué = the artist who is lacking, the want-to-be artist. A competent draughtsman, perhaps, as Hitler was, but utterly deficient in the matters of art.

[rosemallow84]

@Larkspladge the artist manque (literally the "almost artist") is a recurring trope in Nabokov. I recommend Despair, one of his pre-war dark comic novels, though such characters can be found in everything from Lolita to Pale Fire. In fact, Pale Fire is the best of his books centered on the artist manque theme, though not so much of the "monster" type. As I write this, I remember a line from Waugh's Decline and Fall, in which it's posited that ALL evil is a function of the failed artist idea.

[zootsoot2006]

What about the monsters on our side?

[Guedingen]

Brilliant psychological insights on the terrorist mind - many thanks

[romancandlefight]

mmm... I'd be wary of taking 'psychology' lessons from someone who's not a psychologist